Though I had told myself I wasn't going to touch it, the eerie green novel haunted me from the shelf. I knew exactly who the narrator was, just from seeing the title on the spine, and though it would be of great interest to me, part of me didn't want to know what I had allowed to happen for my own curiosity through his first hand account. However, as I sat in the secret study that day, some days after discovering it, I knew I could avoid the novel no longer. I had to read it, had to add another piece to Nox's puzzle, no matter what sat between those pages. Standing, every muted thud of my shoes on the carpet took me closer to the consequences of my own actions. Hand raising to the shelf, when my fingers met the spine, a chill took me.
No matter what horrors I had experienced, nothing quite scared me like Sage Colburn.
Taking it into my hands, I walked back to my desk. As I sat down, a deep breath escaped me. Opening the book, I flipped through the front pages until I found the first line, though, I paused before reading it. Bringing my shoes up to my desk, I crossed one over the other as I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
Okay, this was it, I really had to read it.
Taking in the first line, it didn't land until I read the second. Eyes wide, staring at one specific word, my heart slowed. A shaking breath rattled through me as my eyes drifted away, glass already threatening to take them. Teeth grit as I wiped my eyes, I forced them to go back.
This one was going to be hard.
“Do you ever feel like you’re being watched?”
Rain pelted the sunroof of the darkened cabin as I looked over to my mom in the passenger’s side of my car. Her eyes didn’t meet mine, silver like the stars, they matched the grey streak that fell over each side of her middle part, framing her youthful face that never seemed to wrinkle, not even when she smiled.
“Not really, no,” eyes drifting back to the road, the beams of my headlights illuminated the downpour before us, tunneling my field of vision.
“I suppose that’s good.”
The storm filled the silence, the pressure inside my car mounting as I took a careful turn in the rain. Taking a breath that felt labored despite the only weight on my chest that of my uniform tie, I smiled, “I’ve been thinking about all the places I’ll go, after I get my license this week. It has been so long since I left this town, I can’t even remember what it looks like outside.” Slowing at a blinking yield light, I looked over to my mom, “You’ve traveled the world, do you have any suggestions?”
“You shouldn’t leave Blazing Star,” she continued to not look my way, as if she couldn’t.
Staring at her sharply defined profile, the air left my lungs, but my next inhale couldn’t fill the vacuum forming in my chest, “Why?”
“You can’t.”
A car honked behind us, making me jump. Eyes flying to the street ahead, I pulled the car forward, “I don’t mean any disrespect, mom, but,” my view drifted to her out of the corner of my eyes, my face remaining forward as my smile maintained, “you can’t stop me. As long as I have the ability to, I’m going to drive out of here someday and never look back. The world must be so much bigger than Blazing Star, bigger than Central Oregon, and I want to see it all.”
“Is that so?”
I was about to laugh, about to try to keep spirits up, about to ask her if she was alright since she had been acting odd, but those sentiments would forever remain unsaid as her phone received a notification, buzzing. Taking up her purse from the floor, she slowly unzipped it, as if she wanted to delay as long as possible before she fished her phone out. Opening it up, it lit her face, casting her shadow behind her on the ceiling of the insulated space inside the car.
Closing it, she sat in darkness for a moment.
“Sage,” looking to me for the first time since we got in the car, my mom’s eyes locked on mine, and it was too dark to really tell, but they almost looked like they had glassed over, “You will escape someday, I know you will. I’ll send an angel for you, until then, no matter what happens, please,” her eyes drifted to the road, “know that I love you.”
Breath caught in my throat, my eyes traced her gaze forward.
I only saw it for a moment, the tree approaching.
But a moment was long enough.
So why, when I slammed on the breaks, did we not stop?
Chapter 1:
A Day in The Life of Mr. President
When was it, that I noticed?
Maybe it was the day everything changed, but everything stayed the same.
Another sprinkler triggered, drenching me from above. Standing there, surrounded by plants, an open control panel before me, chaos behind, I sighed.
“I don’t think that was the right switch, Mr. President.”
Turning to look at the Gardening Club President and eternal pain in my ass, I raised a brow, “Is that right, Mr. Tory?”
Stepping up to the control panel, Ray reached into it as water dripped down clumps of his mahogany hair to his oval, thin gold wire framed glasses, “Maybe try this one.”
Flipping a switch, the water pressure increased, doubling the amount of water hemorrhaging from the ceiling of the greenhouse. Eyes resting on the label for the switch he had just triggered, it read “pressure increase”. Slowly looking over to him at my side, my glasses covered in water droplets, I stared at him as he stood beneath the downpour, not the slightest bit bothered.
“Can’t you read.”
Looking over to me, his head crooked, his smile was mischievous as he took a bouncing step away. He walked around in the rain, his hands never leaving his pockets as he radiated an unhinged leisure, something far wiser than the years of the young man, “Bold of you to assume that.”
Turning from him so he wouldn’t see me smile, I rolled my eyes as I flipped another switch. A hiss met the air as the water started to drain, the pressure dwindling until they turned off. Left standing in a moment, the sound of dripping filling the silence, I tamed my smile before turning back around. Folding my arms over my chest as a few of the other Gardening Club members leaned out from around the fixtures of the greenhouse, Ray stood, fearlessly in front of me.
My shoe tapped in the standing water beneath us.
“You’re lucky the greenhouse is detached from the school, otherwise you could have flooded the entire building, Mr. Troy.”
“Yes yes,” Stopping right in front of me, dripping wet, he was built like a spindly tree, barely more than a few twigs in a school uniform pretending to be a person, his big acorn eyes locked on mine from but a step away, “My apologies, Mr. President. It’s just so tedious, watering everything, I thought I could speed up the process.”
I may have gotten lost in those eyes for a moment too long, they had a gravity, like a trail that led you deep into the forest, and if you weren’t careful, you’d never make it back out. Turning away from him, I brought my hand up to the knot of my wet tie, suppressing the smile he threatened to invoke in me, “As much fun as it is, babysitting you, I have work to do.”
The way his breath sounded as it filtered through his smile put a spring in my step, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Shaking my head as I stepped out the door with a wave, I let myself smile, though he’d never see it, “Always a pleasure.”
It was a day just like any other.
Walking the handful of steps between the door of the greenhouse and the back door of the school, I did my best to shed as much of the water in my clothing as possible. Raking my hands through my hair, I pulled my silver and black bangs back over my head. Straightening my glasses, there was no point in trying to dry them, my shirt was wet too.
A day in which I had attended classes.
Walking down the halls, I kept my eyes ahead, not allowing them to drift askance. If I ever did that, I ran the risk of seeing what I was missing while I was so busy looking forward. Or perhaps it was because I didn’t want to miss it, something right in front of me. I couldn’t afford to do that, not again.
A day in which I raised my hand for every question because no one else would.
Chapel like ceilings above, the communion of white and grey dancing in the marble squeaking beneath my wet dress shoes, I made my way down the hall, paying no mind to the passing students. A servo’s hum caught my ear, dragging my gaze up above. Eyes meeting with a security camera covered in a black dome, I stared at my little reflection in it.
A day in which I was the first to hand in my test.
Rounding the corner at the end of the Senior Wing, I was met with staggeringly tall ceiling-to-floor glass doors, donning ornate golden handles, the threshold to the main office. Pad of my palm meeting with the room temperature metal, its feather like carvings, though made of gold, felt soft as my grip tightened and I pulled the door open.
A day in which the desk next to me remained empty.
I smiled at the staff holding down camp behind the front lines of the marble topped counter that separated my world from the rest of the school. Walking through the hinging counter, breaking the boundary between student and staff, I passed their desks as they typed away on rigorous lesson plans and graded assignments with the upmost prejudice. Sometimes I wondered which was harder, attending Blazing Star Private High, or teaching at it. A compelling argument could be made for either.
Walking down the single wide hall at the back of the office, I passed bulletin boards and posters, schedules and telephone trees. It was my daily ritual, the aisle I walked down as I reaffirmed my vow, promising myself to my position. Opening the door, I smiled as my eyes rested on the opaque window and the black eye-level lettering on it.
Student Council
The creak was a familiar, comforting sound as I was met with an empty room. Closing the door behind me, my hand lingered on the knob for a moment. Fingers trailing away, the coolness of the metal stuck to my skin as I walked down the middle of the room, empty desks lining my sides. Stopping at the desk that stood, head of the room, my eyes met with my name plate. Picking it up, its weight was like an old friend in my hand, the silver lettering stood out against the black backdrop.
Sage Colburn
President
Setting it back down, I turned, looking over the room that was once so lively. As I walked forward, passing an empty desk, I thought on the Vice President. He was the first to leave. Passing the next desk, I remembered the Club Advisor and how they were the next to desert. My fingertips skated over the next desk I passed, reminding me of the Treasurer and how hard it was for them to hand me their resignation. My steps slowed as I remembered the way the Secretary couldn’t even face me, resigning through an email. I watched them enter through that door on their first day, and I watched them close it on their last. The silence that had made home where colleagues once lived pried into my back, like it was staring at me as I stopped at the phone that sat, mounted on the wall. Its beige faded over the years, its weight in my hand brought a calm to me. Finger hovering above the pound key, I closed my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I chased away the ghosts.
The rest of the council may have been gone, but I was still here.
The corner of my mouth twisted up as my finger met the key.
Muffled through the walls of the council room, the ringing of the school’s chime was music to me as it echoed through the halls. The moment it ended, but the moment before I spoke, was the moment where my heart sat in suspension, one of anticipation, one in which I felt alive.
“Good afternoon Blazing Star Private High, this is your Student Council President, Sage Colburn, with today’s closing announcements.”
My eyes scanned the sheet tacked to the wall next to the phone as my voice took over the halls. Though at this point, I didn’t need to even look at the script, all I had to do was fill in the blanks. Those words were engraved into me, a part of me, like my title that had become synonyms with my name.
“If you’re a part of the Stargazing Club, make sure to have your permission slip turned into the office by Thursday if you plan on going on the club field trip on Friday.”
A drop of water slid down my glasses, passing through my vision.
“The Winter Ball Committee is still accepting applications for membership, if you’re interested drop off your form in the club file outside the Student Council office by Friday.”
Falling from my glasses, the drop left my view but my awareness of the glass before my eyes remained.
“And as always,” I smiled, leaning my forehead up against the wall next to the phone as my eyes closed, “if you have any questions or concerns, your student council will be here to help. With that, have a wonderful day and never forget, you’re here for a reason.”
Bringing the phone to its hook on the wall, my hand lingered even after I had hung up. A deep breath escaped me but left me warmer than when it came, maintaining my smile as I took in the moment. No matter what changed, no matter what happened in these halls, I was the one thing everyone could count on, the one who would never leave, the one keeping the school running.
Elected four times, it was an honor.
My life purpose.
“You alright there, Mr. President?”
Flying up from the wall, my blood went cold as my eyes were met with blue so muted it chilled even the air. I couldn’t remember the day I met Sheldon Poe, he had just always been there. Standing in the cracked door, his perpetual smirk greeted me.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I turned from him as my smile returned, trying to calm the racing in my chest as I started toward my desk, putting as much space between us as possible.
“Just the usual,” the sound of his designer shoes exhumed haunted memories as he followed me in, “though, just as usual, it’s nothing interesting.”
Turning, I leaned up against my desk, arms crossed over my chest. Sheldon’s hungry eyes ripped into me, waiting for a reaction, anything, as he tossed a stack of the student newspapers onto his old desk but I just smiled.
“It’s always so depressing in here, I definitely do not miss it,” running his hand over the desk, he inspected the dust on his fingers before his eyes drifted back to me. Scanning me up and down as he lowered his hand, he shifted his weight, “Did Troy set off the sprinklers again?”
I didn’t reply because that was a stupid question and he knew it.
Taking a step forward, his hands slithered into his pockets, “It’s another boring news week, Mr. President. I’m itching for a scandal.”
Barely able to look at him and the way that smirk twisted his boyish features, I forced myself to maintain the eye contact and good tone. While I’m sure it was fear he wished to inspire within me, all he drummed up was disappointment, “I see you’re brimming with conviction, perhaps if you directed some of that energy toward literally anything other than writing slanderous stories about me in the newspaper, you could achieve something interesting.”
The line of his mouth visibly fought to maintain neutrality as his eyes ate away at me. Though whether he was trying to keep it from twisting up or down, I couldn’t tell. Turning from me, his face may have won out, but I wasn’t able to see as I stared at his back, “It’s just a matter of time. Something will come up, it always does.” Stopping, his confident frame, accented by his black uniform blazer served as a wall between us, “It was a year ago today, wasn’t it?”
My heart jumped into my throat, choking away any response I could have conjured, freezing my smile on my face as my eyes widened.
Twisting around, just enough to look at me, his sharp features sliced the air, “I could hear it in your voice during the announcements.” As he turned from me, his shoulders tensed with his breath. Looking away from his gaze, my eyes caught on the little blue light flickering on his hearing aid. Walking towards the door, he took the knob in hand, “My family sends their regards.”
Watching Sheldon close the door behind him reminded me of the day my Vice-President left and no matter how many times he came back in, he never did again, not really. Sometimes though, I could still see him in there somewhere.
When the door clicked closed, I pushed myself up from my desk. Walking around it, I swiped up a newspaper from the stack and sat down. Propping my elbow up on my desk as I waited for the ancient desktop to hum to life, I scanned over the headline. Brow raising as another droplet rolled from my glasses, I was too occupied with the fine example of journalism, before me to see the glass.
Error, Negligence, or Tampering?
President Colburn Claims Ignorance in Security Footage Loss
By Sheldon Poe
Perhaps Sheldon was secretly my biggest fan. Setting the paper down, my eyes drifted to the screen as it flashed to life. Opening up the security footage of the Gardening Club’s green house, I rewound quickly through the last couple of hours. Slowing down, I watched Ray wave at the camera before walking up to the sprinkler panel, popping it open and flipping a switch. He didn’t even flinch as the sprinklers exploded above him. Closing the panel, as unbothered as a tree in a drizzle, he turned to his other members as they came rushing in. Smiling as I paused it, I admired the way Ray acted like he had no idea what was going on as he took out his phone to call me in the office for help. Highlighting the moments before that, I allowed my eyes to linger on Ray a moment longer before I clicked the delete button.
It was a good thing no one took the president of the Newspaper Club seriously because occasionally Sheldon was on to something.
A knock sent ice through my veins.
Eyes jumping to the door, I quickly closed out of the security program and turned off the monitor, “Come on in.”
The door creaked open, slowly, and due to that, I didn’t even have to see who was on the other side to know it was the Principal. Standing, I smiled as he entered through the threshold with the audacity of a deer deciding if they were safe to cross the street or if taking their next step would be their last.
“Good afternoon, Sage,” Lanky, his ill fitted suit accentuated his frame with its size as its sickly greens did nothing to complement his complexion and sunken hazel eyes. Closing the door behind him, I wondered what business he had with me. It wasn’t a common occurrence, our meeting this way
“Good afternoon, Principal Drake.” Turning the newspaper over on my desk, I walked around it to meet him, “Can I help you with anything?”
He took a step away.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the man actively avoided me.
“Yes, actually,” he brought one hand up to his well kept but thinning blonde hair and the other out toward me, the file in it sagging from his grip. “I know this is short notice, but we have a transfer student starting tomorrow, and we- I, I would like you to handle the orientation.”
“Of course, Sir,” I accepted the papers, eyes not leaving the man before me, “It’s not every day we get a transfer student, how exciting.”
When he looked away from me, his bushy brows furrowed, it really highlighted the stress he wore like an accessory, “That is one way to put it, yes,” starting away from me, he buried his hands in the pockets of his ballooning pants that must have been held up by a belt, that was the only way they didn’t drop to the floor, “Thank you.” Stopping in front of the door, he didn’t turn to face me as he spoke, “You’re doing an exceptional job. Shouldering the work of an entire council on your own, managing our clubs, maintaining your spot at the top of your class. You’re on track to become the valedictorian and to be the first to achieve perfect attendance through your entire four years,” a long breath escaped him, one that sounded as if it rattled, like he were a bunch of bones in a sack of weathered skin, “I can’t believe it has been almost four years already.” Glancing over his shoulder at me as his hand met the doorknob, I don’t think his eyes actually met me, but went through me, far beyond the off-white walls of the office, “You’re going to rule the world when you graduate.”
When the door closed behind him, I was left to stare at it for a moment.
Contemplating if I had ever had a remotely normal interaction with the Principal, I sat back down at my desk. Setting the file down, my eyes lingered on the beige folder it sat inside. It was lighter than the usual student file. Resting my elbow on the desk, I propped my chin up on my hand. Bringing the pad of my finger to the folder, I opened it.
My breath hitched.
One single page of paper sat between the ends of the folder, mostly blank, as it stared up at me.
Name: Drew Ockley
Age: 18 years-old
Level: 12
Admittance type: Executive Scholarship
Affiliation:
Flipping the page over, I was left to stare at the blank back. They had no recorded schooling history, no places of previous residency, letters of recommendation, not even a single state testing score or photo. Turning the paper back over, I scanned over the only information I had. They were a senior, eighteen years old, a scholarship student. But the thing that stood out the most was something that had haunted me, but never before had I seen it on another file. An affiliation of note was present, though for whatever reason, completely blacked out.
Standing, I left the file open on my desk as I walked over to the wall of cabinets. Tracing my finger down them, I stopped on the drawer marked with a P. Pulling it open, I pawed through the files until I found the one I desired. Closing that drawer, my finger traced further down to the drawer marked with a T. I didn’t even have to search for that file as I pulled it from its place. Taking them into hand as I closed the drawer, I opened the first file.
Met with chilling blue eyes and snowy blonde hair, I had to remind myself that it was just a photo as Sheldon stared up at me. His affiliation was that of Poe Industries, the billion dollar corporation his senator father owned. It dabbled in arms dealing, but that was the extent myself, or any other layperson, knew about it. Perhaps it was better that way.
Closing his file, I slid it beneath the other. Flipping the next open with perhaps too much fervor, I was met with the mischievous smile of a young man who’s singular goal was to infect every moment of my life, like an invasive weed, cropping up everywhere it shouldn’t. Ray’s affiliation was that of the Spector Group. His file stated that he was a ward under the care of the quiet but powerful business conglomerate that covertly seemed to own nearly every restaurant in Blazing Star. It also held information on his immigration paperwork and his previous Australian citizenship.
Returning the files to their homes, the metal clink of the T cabinet closing echoed in my chest as I pulled open another. As if I had done this a thousand times, my hand had memorized the order and pulled out the file without my even having to look. Its weight in my hand my weight in this world, I opened it. Staring down at a younger version of myself, I couldn’t bare the sight as my eyes drifted away from my photo to my information.
Name: Sage Colburn
Age: 18 years-old
Level: 12
Admittance type: Executive Scholarship
Affiliation:
I had looked at hundreds of files over the years, but until now, mine had been the only one with a marked-out affiliation. Staring at that mark of redaction, echoes of past questions and conversations that were always cut short occupied my mind. This school was full of people like Sheldon and Ray, heirs to the future, wealth and power at their fingertips. We were even home to heroes, people of particularly high notoriety.
Every one of us were here for a reason.
Every one of us except me.
Closing my file, I dropped it back into the cabinet and turned from it as it clicked.
Sitting back at my desk, the new file left open, I traced the pad of my finger over the black line that obscured the student’s affiliation. Modest family of modest income, scholarship student with nothing but my father’s last name to my legacy, why was I here? The question of why was the least troubling bit to me, though. What was haunting about it was that there was an answer, there had to be, but no one would tell me. Staring down at the name on the file, it was one I had never seen before, but somehow, it felt as if I had thought it a million times.
What did we have in common, what connected us through that thick black line?
It was a day in which I stayed at the office as late as I possibly could.
A day like any other.
Knocking startled me as I was signing off on a special budget request for the Stargazing Club’s upcoming field trip. Looking to the door, I knew that knock, playful in nature, it was always the same little pattern. Flattening the line of my smile, I looked back down to the form before calling out for them to come in.
The way the door opened, as if his hand was already on the knob, had it turned, and was just waiting for the signal to enter, Ray had a spark for life I could only envy. Taking a step into the office, there was a bounce to his every movement, a self possession that would have intimidated me, had I not been completely charmed by it.
“Good evening, Mr. President,” walking over to the sink at the right of the door, Ray, potted plant in hand, knew he didn’t have to ask for permission because it didn’t matter my reply, he was going to do whatever he wanted anyway, “Late night?”
Finishing my required portion of the form, I stood and started toward the outgoing box that I would have to deal with tomorrow, “I didn’t even notice the time,” setting the form down, I leaned against the wall several strides away from Ray as he set the pot down in the sink, “What plant is that, Mr. Troy.”
Turning from the sink as he clicked the water on, he hung from the sink and swung around a bit, “Oh am I thrilled that you asked, Mr. President. This,” he swung to the side turning off the faucet in the process and gestured to the plant, “is a Bird of Paradise, it represents freedom. It hasn’t bloomed yet, but someday,” he paused, eyes lingering on me, “it will.”
The lights flickered.
Glancing up at the humming fixture, I wondered where all the funding for the school went if they had light fixtures like that. Returning to my desk, I pulled up my briefcase from the floor and put my pen away. Clicking my briefcase closed, I took it in hand and looked back to my unwelcome but appreciated guest. My step hitched when I saw that Ray was still staring up at the light fixture. A moment later he looked down and saw me staring, but just smiled in that way that made me look away.
Meeting me, he pocketed his empty hand and pulled the door open with his other, making a grand gesture of it as he motioned for me to exit, “Lead the way to freedom, Mr. President.”
The light flickered again as I stepped out of the office. Glancing back over my shoulder, I watched as Ray followed me, “I suppose I should put in a work order about that.”
Closing the door, Ray pocketed his other hand, “Maybe it’s haunted.”
Exiting the office, Ray followed me toward the front door, small in the midst of the vaulted ceilings and marble construction of our excessive private academy. It looked like a church, stain glass windows lining the tall ceilings, darkened by the night, but would cast colors upon the morning light. Glancing down the shadowed Senior Wing, the school felt numb in the silence. As if the pressure was still present, the momentum not diminished, just suspended, to continue its racing upon the next morning. Though it was dead, empty, it never felt dead, no matter how deserted, as if there were still people there, doing things in the walls.
A clang caused me to stop mid-step. Turning to glance back past the main office and toward the cafeteria, the lights were off, the school was supposed to be empty. Eyes scanning the gaping room, I couldn’t sense any movement. Ray stopped, turning to look my way as I took a step forward toward the darkness. If there was someone lingering, they were probably up to no good and I wasn’t about to allow anyone to cause trouble in my kingdom.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
Stopping, I looked back to see Ray, his grip a little tighter than was casually called for.
“It’s nothing,” he smiled, gaze drifting from me to behind me, the darkness bringing out the depth of his hazel eyes, “like I said, the school is probably just haunted.”
He pulled on me, gesturing toward the door. Reluctance lingered in my muscles as I slowly turned, eyes drifting over the darkened cafeteria. The quiet as we approached the front doors was filled with the humming of a servo. Looking up the black camera orb on the ceiling, I watched Ray open the first of the front doors through the reflection.
Suave like the way a vine climbed a tree, Ray bowed as he looked up to me, holding the door. With a roll of my eyes, I stepped into the in between, the section that wasn’t quite inside and wasn’t quite out, chilly like the December outside but still a bit controlled like the temperature of the world inside. A twilight, a limbo, for some reason time never felt real between those two doors.
Standing there, I stared at the outside through pangs of glass, a fish inside a tank.
Pulling the door open, I stepped back and looked to Ray.
He looked away, as if he had been staring, “You know, Mr. President,” he started forward, but stopped right in the metal threshold of the door, looking at me through the glass, “if you’re not paying attention, it’s quite easy to see right through glass, as if it wasn’t there, but,” reaching up, he placed his hand on the glass door between us, “once you notice it, you can’t unsee it.”
A beat passed, one in which the security sensors above us clicked.
“Isn’t that interesting?” He lowered his hand and walked outside, leaving a handprint on the glass.
Following him as I let go of the door and listened to it close behind me, I pocketed my free hand in the cold as we descended the looming front steps, “It makes perfect sense, if you’re too busy focusing on what’s beyond it, of course you won’t see the glass.”
“Funny, how that works.” He stopped at the end of the stairs, “Well,” the buzz of a phone vibrating cut him off, though by the pacing of his speech, where his pause fell, it almost felt like he had been anticipating it, “I forgot that I actually have detention this evening, so I will be taking my leave.” Starting back up the stairs, a spring in his steps, he turned to me as he hopped up them, “Have a great evening, Mr. President.”
Staring at him as he flung the door open, a deranged prisoner with the apathy of a god walking to his detention, I never really followed half of what Ray said, I just liked the way he said it. Watching the door after it closed, I stood in the silence for a moment. Eyes caught on his handprint on the glass, something about it made it hard to look away. Bringing my hand up to my shoulder, his touch lingered. Thinking back as I stepped away from the school and down the sidewalk, I couldn’t recall any other time in all the years we had known each other that Ray had made contact with me. I would definitely remember if it he had. He never even stood, squarely at my side, as if it were on purpose.
Walking along, lowering my hand, I pocketed it as my eyes scanned over the empty roads, not a car in sight. I could walk on the street, it would be perfectly safe, youthful even, but there I remained on the sidewalk, safe.
Juniper trees lined my walk, the parasites of the high desert, I wondered what Central Oregon would have looked like, had they not infested the area from the wheels of the colonizers. Stepping with purpose, the stiffness of my shoes as they interacted with the unforgiving concrete beneath them was a form of release as the stress from the day became my only company. Day in and day out, I was Sage Colburn, student council president, perfect student, always exceeding expectation. But, as I walked by the gentleman that always sat on that same bench at that same time of day every night reading the same book, I wondered how much longer I could keep that up.
Stopping, I stood but seven segments of sidewalk away from the house I lived in. A breath stung in my chest as I dug for my keys and wondered briefly if anyone would notice if I just started secretly living at the school instead. Modest and monochromatic, the baby blues and off whites of the two story house sat, uncomfortably stale in my sight as I stepped up onto the deck. Not too nice, not too bad, it was a house and that was just about it.
The porch light turned on, trapping me in its beam as the sensor on it blinked with a little blue light. Unlocking the front door, I was met with a darkened living room. Closing the door behind me, I took off my shoes and flipped on the light. When was it that I stopped calling it a home? As I started down the hall, my eyes drifting over our last family photo, I didn’t know why I even pondered the question, because I knew the answer.
Carpet that was probably once quite plush pressed under my socks with enough give it implied that I could relax met my every step as I made my way up the stairs and toward my bedroom. Opening the door, I flicked on the light to bring my room to life. Though, as I set my briefcase down, taking my blazer off, my eyes were assaulted by the overbearing blank white of my walls. Opening my closet, I took a hanger into hand, sliding my blazer onto it. I loosened my tie, the white of my walls began to burn in my vision around my closet door. Gaze drifting askance, I stared at the white of my wall, brow furrowed, as if it was trying to tell me something.
When the wall refused to share its secrets, I ran my hands over my face, pushing my glasses up. Thumb and index finger pressing on the bridge of my nose, my eyes closed as I tried to shake it off, whatever it was. Unbuttoning the top button of my white button down, I started out of my room.
Glancing at the clock, it wasn’t as late as it looked with the whole getting dark at 2pm thing, but it was still late enough that my father should have returned by then. Biting back irritation, I ventured into the kitchen and pulled open the pantry. Staring at the empty shelves, the breath that left me took some of my will to live with it as my hand met with a box of pasta. Starting to make dinner, my mind was elsewhere, plotting passive aggressive ways to remind Ian that if he didn’t ever go to the store we would continue to have boxed pasta every single night until we die. Which, at this rate, wouldn’t take very long.
Though, as I plated us up, sitting down at the table with my homework, death felt preferable. Eyes passing the third chair at the table, they may have lingered a little too long. Maybe he was at the cemetery, maybe that’s where I should have been. Was it in poor taste, though, to visit the grave of someone you killed?
The slamming of a car door startled me, my gaze jumping toward the front door. Standing, I approached the entryway, hand extended to the knob. My grip met with icy metal as another car door slammed closed. A woman’s laugh pierced my ears as I stepped back from the door, my jaw tightening. Rushing to the table, my eyes snagged on that empty third seat as I took my plate in hand. Taking it to my room, I set it down on my desk and started back down the stairs to retrieve my notebook from the table. Picking it up, I was turning back to the stairs when the front door clicked.
I froze in my step.
The creak of the door paralyzed me as it groaned open, my father standing in the threshold, though he wasn’t alone. Turning to face them, I shifted my weight and eyes away.
“Oh, Sage,” my father said as he stumbled into the entry way, his girlfriend on his arm, “I didn’t realize you were home.”
As I turned to face him, I didn’t smile, he didn’t deserve that respect, “I do live here.”
Standing at the mouth of the house in his disheveled security uniform, the man my mother saw something in studied me. Tired eyes, wrinkles carved by the years of scowling, his stubble and muted brown hair were both overgrown, “Ali is with me, watch your tone.”
The beginnings of a sigh escaped me before I stifled it. Fully facing him, I closed off the air between us as I crossed my arms over my chest, “I am aware.”
Leaning up against the wall, his eyes dropped from mine, as Ali lingered a step behind him, her bottle blonde hair and cocktail dress way out of my father’s league. “Your mother has been gone for a year, I think it’s time for you to understand that I’ve moved on,” he took his coat off, “and you should too.”
Eyes resting on him, I searched for anything in the man before me worthy of my mother’s heart. Finding nothing, like every other time my eyes met his, I dropped my arms and turned to the hall. “Has it really only been a year since she died?” I didn’t face him, “One would think it has been much longer, with how long you’ve been entertaining your mistress.”
He didn’t get another full word out before I raced up the stairs and down the second story hall, running from him as he chased me. Rounding the corner into my room, I closed the door between us, locking it. Yelling as he beat on the door, the reverberations made my bones ache as I pressed my side up against the door to brace it. The faintest vibration of a phone met my ears from the other side. One thundering pound later, my father stormed away from my door and down the stairs.
The breath I always had to hold in his presence left me as I took my first step back, eyes locked on the door. As I took the next back, I bumped into my desk. I was going to regret that remark later. Pulling my desk chair out, I sat down, ripping my glasses from my face as I buried it in my hands. Though I was alone, there was an unease to the air as I sat in silence sprinkled in muffled voices of the others in the house. It reminded me that while I was alone, I wasn’t, not really. But a few steps away was a man who wished me harm, a woman who wrecked my home. Unable to relax no matter where I was, I couldn’t remember the last time my shoulders weren’t tense.
Looking through my hand at the trophy I was awarded for three years of perfect attendance as it sat on my shelf, I felt like even it was watching me.
Finishing dinner, I sat at my desk as it somehow got even darker outside. A framed photo rested on my desk, catching my eyes as I set my glass of water down. Taking it into hand, my faint reflection was caught on the glass that separated me from her. Trapped behind that glass, in a moment long since past, my mother smiled at me. Bringing the pad of my finger up to the photo, the bitter cold of the glass met my skin.
If only I could unsee it, maybe I could just see her, and not what separated us.
Setting the picture face down on my desk, I stood.
Walking to my dresser, I brought up my right cuff to my left hand. Popping the cufflink out, I admired the way the blue gem embedded on silver caught the light. Taking the other out, I set them on my dresser next to each other. The last gift I got from Sheldon, I wore them every day.
My room wasn’t big, it was actually quite small. So why, I wondered, as I laid down on my bed, did it feel this way? I brought my forearm up, laying it over my eyes. A roar of a motorcycle outside caught my attention, but for a brief moment as I laid there. When that time of night came around, the time when my father’s bedroom door across the hall closed, I sat up on my bed. Pulling my window open, I had to do it with upmost care so it wouldn’t squeal, alerting him of my escape. As muffled sounds I didn’t want to hear made their way through the wall, I slid myself up through the window.
The stinging cold bit into my hands as I pulled my weight up over the gutter and onto the roof. Standing, I stretched, a deep breath escaping me, but not forming a cloud because I was already too cold. Looking up to the muted stars, I could remember a time when I could see them clearly before the rise of light pollution. Walking around the roof, looking out over the treetops and low hanging clouds, I felt as if I had memorized every branch, every shingle beneath my shoes.
I sat down on the roof, my shadow cast before me on the shingles by the full moon. Hands on the cool tiles of the roof as they supported me, one knee bent, the other leg dangling off of the roof, I looked up. The only place I felt free, the roof was the highest I could get above that town. Yawning, I brought one of my hands to my face.
Had it really been a year?
Looking down to the driveway, my eyes met with the new car. Totaled, they told me, wrecked beyond repair. But as the one who crashed the damn thing, I knew that wasn’t true. All the same, the very next day my mom’s car was gone, and that new one was in its place, not a word exchanged. I had never touched it, I could barely even look at it as my eyes drifted up.
What would she have said to me, if she was sitting there on the roof?
The wind blew my hair about a bit, the silver stripe I shared with her crossing over my vision as my bangs fell out of place. Standing as I raked my bangs back over my head, I looked up at the stars, a cloud starting to blow in front of the moon. A year ago, she said something, something so knowing, as if she was aware the breaks were about to malfunction.
She told me to escape.
But from what, I’d never know. The only thing I was trapped in was my life. Eyes drifting down again, snagging on the ground below, I wondered if that’s what she meant. Looking back up, I shook the thought, of course that wasn’t what she meant. What else was it that she had said? Stretching, I pulled my arms behind my head, groaning a bit as I closed my eyes.
“Do you ever feel like you’re being watched?”
My blood turned to ice as cool metal pressed into my temple.
Eyes wide, they slowly drifted down to see another shadow had enveloped mine, an arm up to the side of my head, a shadow of a gun in hand. Breath hitched, the jump that came to rise in me flatlined as quickly as it had come to be, leaving my blood nothing more than cold.
“Not really, no.”
Pivoting, my hands met with soft worn leather as I took the person by the collar of their jacket, knocking their hand away. The gun went flying, landing on the roof and skidding to a stop near the chimney. Yanking them around me, a muddling of footsteps left us, frozen. The cloud moved from the moon, shedding light on the scene.
A pebble fell from the roof.
In my grasp, at my mercy, a young man stood, stiff as I held him facing me, leaning over the edge, my grip the only thing keeping him there. A faded leather jacket clung in the tension to a toned frame, his every muscle activated to keep himself stiff enough to not fall. Face obstructed by an ornate, black, bird-like mask, its golden details glistened in the low light. As a single short auburn curl fell over it, the rest blew a bit in the unforgiving winter breeze as his exhale turned up with the line of his mouth.
My grip tightened, the leather of his jacket groaning in my fist, “Who are you?”
Though his body housed tension, he didn’t appear fazed, “Your guardian angel.”
Staring at him, framed by the darkened branches of the trees as they rustled, a chorus in the wind, a nearby streetlight flickered. A clump of my bangs brushed through my vision, my glasses a bit crooked from the scuffle.
“And how did you get onto the roof?”
The smirk that took him darkened his tone of whimsy, “I flew here, of course.”
“Is that right,” the longer I looked at him and his jaw line, his bony fingers, lightly freckled complexion and short bouncy curls, the harder it was to maintain the contact, “then you’d be alright if I were to just,” loosening my grip a little, alarm came to rise on his features as his hands flew up to mine, grabbing onto my wrist. Shining in the moonlight, my eyes met with a ring on his fingers donning white knuckles. A gold band, it housed a stone that looked as if it were the reason for the muted sky, holding the stars hostage within.
“Give me one good reason to not drop you from the roof.”
A pause took him, but then, his grip loosened on me, “I know your secret.”
Eyes drifting up to his, they were too shadowed by the mask for me to infer the color, “You’re not helping your case.” Loosening my grip a little more, I felt his grip tighten on my wrist. A smirk found me, “I see you have little faith in your wings.”
A hiss escaped him through clenched teeth as his unwavering grip maintained on my hands that held his life in their grasp, “Alright, rephrasing,” his body started to shake, his muscles beginning to give, “I know the secret being kept from you.”
I had prepared to loosen my grip, prepared for the sound he’d make upon marrying the ground, prepared for my act, prepared to tell the police that he appeared out of nowhere and held a gun to my head, I had even prepared for what Sheldon would surely have written about in the school newspaper, but the one thing I wasn’t prepared for was what he had just said.
A black line of redaction cut across my vision, crossing his eyes before fading from my view.
Pulling him back, I threw him to the side. Stumbling away, he quickly regained his footing and combative stance. Fixing his jacket, he stood a stride away from me, our shadows stretching across the roof toward the edge at which he nearly met his end. The gun sat on the shingles between us.
“What secret are you talking about?”
Running his hand through his hair, his curls bounced back into perfection through his fine fingers as he shifted his weight, “Well I can’t just tell you that, now can I?” The metronomic thuds of his boots as he approached aligned with the beating of my heart as the jingling of a chain filled the moments between each, “You just proved to me that the secret is the only thing standing between me and your wrath, Mr. President.” Stopping a step away, he was a couple inches taller than me but I didn’t back down, eyes locked on his, “If I were to tell you, then I have a feeling the driveway down there and I would become real close friends.”
As the breeze drifted by us his cologne met me.
Wisteria.
“If you’re not going to tell me, then you’re just as good to me dead.”
A chuckle took him as he leaned forward, bringing up his hand, “This is true. Though, while I am not the only one who knows it,” he extended a single finger, bringing it up to the bridge of my glasses, “I am the only one who may be willing to tell you. Assuming you don’t kill me after I do.”
He slid them back into place up my nose.
Was it then, the first time my heart had beat like that?
Taking a step back, I had to put space between us.
Straightening, his smirk maintained as he pocketed his hands, a black knit sweater coming to view beneath the flaps of his jacket, “However, I know that even if I told you,” he looked off to the side and into the sky, the finite line of his jaw highlighted by the shadow cast upon him by the crisp moonlight, “you wouldn’t believe me.”
Taking a breath in, it should have been cold, it should have stung, crystallized my throat and killed me, but it wasn’t, the air couldn’t rival the chill that had taken hold of my core, “Try me.”
Slowly, his gaze rolled down to me, the tilt of his head unsettling as that curl fell to the side, “Your life is a lie.” When I didn’t reply, he started to step around me, a vulture waiting for me to drop, “Or maybe the better way to put it is, you’re living a lie.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“You’re not an idiot, Mr. President, you must have noticed. There must be things that don’t add up.” He stopped in front of the gun, looking down to it, “Every moment of your life, from the second you open your eyes to the second you fall asleep, you’re being watched. Your interactions are scripted, your moments planned. I’m honestly surprised you haven’t caught on yet.” Kneeling down, he took the gun in hand.
I took a step back.
Glancing up to me, he stayed on his knee, “What, this?” Bringing it up to the side of his head as he stood, he laced his finger over the trigger. Before I could stop him, he pulled it.
Standing frozen, hands out in front of me, my yell was choked by my shock as the wind blew straight through me.
Chuckling as he tossed the gun up from one hand and caught it in the other, he slid it into a holster under his coat, “It’s not loaded. You’re fucking terrifying, there was no way I was going to come meet you without a single bluff up my sleeve.” He stopped a step away, holding open the side of his jacket, “or rather, up my…coat.”
We stood in a beat.
Letting go of the flap of his jacket, he pocketed his hands, looking off to the side, “You don’t believe me, do you.”
Eyes slowly moving up to his from the side of his jacket, I crossed my arms over my chest, closing off the space between us, “Of course not.”
“Yeah, she warned me this would happen,” when he smiled, looking back my way, the moonlight hit him ever so slightly, lighting up the radiant blue of his eyes, “I guess it is hard to see,” bringing his hand up, his fingers curled until just his index remained. Pressing the pad into my left glasses lens, his tone ignited something in me, burning despite the cold, “when you’re so used to the glass. But that’s what she sent me here to do,” pulling his hand back, he straightened, taking a step away, “to smudge it.” Turning, his hair bounced with the movement as he extended his arms out to his side, two golden wing patches on his shoulder blades catching the moonlight as he walked away with a bounce to every step. “Think on what I said, and once you’ve seen the glass,” stopping at the edge of the roof, he turned around, a pocket chain hanging against his black pants glittered in the light, “I’ll help you break it.”
Smiling at me, he winked before slowly falling back.
He dropped, disappearing from my view.
As I stumbled forward, anticipating a sound that never came, I nearly fell over the edge myself as I looked to the ground beneath my house. Eyes searching, there was no evidence of him. Not in the trees, not in the grass, as if he really had wings. Staring at the ground, I sat there, unable to even breathe. Eyes begrudgingly raising, I only entertained the thought for a moment as I looked up at the sky before ripping them away.
Falling back, I laid on the roof, staring into the stars.
Though that was difficult to do, with the smudge on my glasses.
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